Spanipelagic

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My brother is a counselor who lately has been working with teenagers who don’t trust adults. I chose to draw a portrait of how he might seem to them in those sessions: a contradiction of being present, probing, treacherous, heartfelt, trustworthy, concentrated, fickle, safe.

He says that eye contact is important because they want to be seen, even when they’re in this black ocean of themselves where they don’t understand what’s going on or who’s on their side, and so inside their view of him is a paradox of wanting to be known and also wanting to stay hidden: and so they see him, too, as a contradiction of sight and darkness. The title is a scientific term that refers to creatures who live in deep water and only come to the surface rarely.